It was in 2002 when Chargers boss Dean Spanos hired attorney Mark Fabiani to play the lead role in getting a new stadium built here. Fabiani, well-paid trooper that he is, keeps trying, but his hair has grown noticeably grayer than when we first met. Guaranteed, his 11th anniversary on the job isn’t one he expected to come around.

And there is no celebrating.

The initial thought was to put a new venue and housing and business development on the Qualcomm Stadium Mission Valley site. It was a grand idea that would have worked, but of course a panicky City Hall, palms sweaty over the ticket guarantee, dropped the ball and then housing went kaput. Now the Chargers actually have a sweeter lease deal than they had before.

Since then, amid unfounded rumors that the team was bolting to L.A., numerous other sites in the county have been examined and ultimately dismissed. Now, for the past couple of years, the focus has been on a downtown site in the East Village, the idea being that it would be a multipurpose venue that also could add much-needed space to the Convention Center.

The hope in Chargerville was to have enough going forward by now to put the team’s proposal for a new downtown stadium on the November ballot. That obviously isn’t happening in 2013. Do we hear 14?

“Both Mayor (Bob) Filner and the Chargers want the same thing, and we’re waiting for a decision by the court to see if the hotel tax being used to fund the Convention Center expansion is legal or illegal,” Fabiani says. “If it’s illegal, then the whole Convention Center expansion goes down the drain, and we can propose a stadium/convention site in the East Village.”

The new mayor seems OK with the Chargers idea that failed to get past the desk of the previous administration, and that is to sell off the city-owned Qualcomm Stadium and Valley View Casino Center (Sports Arena) sites and eventually use that money to help build a new downtown sports complex.

“We’ve got a good relationship with Mayor Filner’s office,” Fabiani says. “He is the first mayor to come out and say we should monetize the Qualcomm site and the Sports Arena site, which is great to hear. The housing market is improving. The Qualcomm site isn’t making money and it’s losing money, roughly $15 million a year. The city’s audit says it owes $70 million in maintenance just to keep it running.”

And that could be lowballing it.

If any of that maintenance money is being used, it’s being pretty well hidden. If you were in the stadium last December, you know it can be a dangerous place when it rains.

“At some point, the place may become unsafe or not suitable for football,” Fabiani says. “Then what do you do?”

Well, you can move, or play at Mesa College.

But things aren’t exactly hopping on the Los Angeles front, where AEG, which wants to build a stadium in downtown L.A., is being sold. At least that’s what we think. City of Industry? Wrapped up in bureaucratic red tape. San Antonio? Spanos once told me he couldn’t see his wife wearing sequined cowgirl boots.

But know this. The NFL has been without an NFL franchise in L.A. for nearly 18 years, and making billions without the No. 2 market, clearly is in no rush to go back. The League will want everything to be perfect before returning there, and right now everything there is not perfect.

“Dean absolutely wants to stay here, to make it work,” Fabiani says.

What Spanos doesn’t want to do is leave this stadium issue hanging, as Jerry Seinfeld once said, like a big matzo ball out there, before sons John and A.G. take over the franchise.

The key now is the Convention Center expansion, which, if true to the other expansion, probably won’t be large enough, which is how we go about things around here.

“It’s cheaper to build one facility (a multipurpose stadium with a soft, retractable roof) to attract major events, something we, as a city, never would be eligible for, even if the Convention Center were to be expanded,” Fabiani says. “Does the expansion vault you into the next category of convention cities, into a Super Bowl city, a Final Four city, attract major events such as what AEG wants to do in L.A.?

“If you build a facility that can be used 250 days a year, not just for football, the naming rights would be more valuable, the signage. You would have more revenue.”

Fabiani keeps trying to sell. He awaits a buyer.

“It’s California,” he says. “You’d think 11 years is a long time to be working on a project. Building big in California is virtually impossible. The 49ers got it done, but they also sold $500 million in PSLs (personal seat licenses). You can build a stadium with that, but it’s a totally different market.”